MASIMBABELE

Listen to MASIMBABELE by The Unknown Cases.

For me this is the quintessential Bumrocks track. I don't know if you know bumrocks.com, but it's a really great, long-lived music blog, which basically just posts a link to a song every day. No fuss, no muss. But the songs are consistently high quality, with a lot of proto-world music electro-dance obscurities. Plus lots of every other thing too! Hard to describe exactly, but after downloading dozens, if not hundreds of tracks there over the years, I feel like I know them well enough to judge. Seems like the blog is in remission currently, let's hope it comes back soon.

As for the Unknown Cases, check out the youtube version of this track. Vintage.

A COMET APPEARS

Listen to A COMET APPEARS by The Shins.

Jason dropping in.

For those of you who were at Bill and Amy's wedding, I was one of the two twisted turntablists (the less-handsome one). Living in England but a native Australian, I'm going to bring some international pedigree to this blinding blog of Bill's.

Bill was asking me over a bottle of wine (well, I was drinking a bottle of wine in London - I don't know what Bill was doing in New York) if there was some kind of theme I'd like to employ in my song selection. My answer, as I slammed down the bottle from my lips, was an emphatic "hell no!" I just want to write about songs that have something of the magic about them. You may know the band, you may even know the tracks, but I just want to share with you songs that can make you feel that music transcends(,) man.

And if I was to contradict myself by grabbing a theme by those last few words, it would be a great description of this first track - "A Comet Appears" by The Shins.

Much more below the fold.


There is a television programme, just finished here in the UK on the Sky Arts channel, called "From the Basement". Its been a long, long time since I've watched musical performance as a weekly television show. This one is different. Its stunningly shot and the performances are very stripped down - there is no host, no audience, not even song titles - just the music. Each episode features 3-4 artists: one "big", one "support" and ones you've probably never heard of. For example:

Damien Rice - Eels - Autolux - Architecture in Helskinki (check out the full lineups here).

The first show featured The Shins - a band who Natalie Portman catapulted to fame on the film "Garden State" when she tells Zach Braff's character that just listening to their song "New Slang" will "change your life, I swear":



....and it worked for me - I loved the song and checked out the band just as I did when John Cusack said "I will now sell 5 copies of 'The Three EPs' of the Beta Band" in the movie "Hi Fidelity":



One of the songs The Shins performed was "A Comet Appears" - the last song on their latest album. I knew the song (its very similar in itself to "New Slang") - but I loved the performance so much that I started playing it on heavy rotation on the 'pod.

The chirping songbirds at the opening, the wistful melodic guitars and evocative imagery of the lyrics belie a very dark song about one man's views of life's futilities as he grows older.

There's a heavy feeling of numbness and solitude; of an insignificance that only catches you when you listen repeatedly to the lyrics against the lightness of the music.

Let's carve my aging face off
Fetch us a knife
Start with my eyes
Down so the lines
Form a grimacing smile

The character compares himself with Nietzsche's concept of the übermensch only to conclude the he is "barely a vapour".

Songwriter and singer James Russell Mercer has quite a way with words. Its a song that could well have begun its life as a poem, with imagery like "thumbs and posture" (evolution), "wily comet" (earth), "burnt sage and a forest of bygones" (evoking a dual meaning of a melancholic meditation and sage also as wisdom).

For all of its reflection about the growing emptiness in the heart of one man, trying to avoid his awakening feeling of a life lost of purpose, it is a beautiful song.

Photo: Paris, 2004. Taken by Jason Bryant.

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS

Listen to MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS by Delta 5.

Sometimes these posts just write themselves, and thanks to youtube, today is one of those times. I had two ways to write about Mind Your Own Business by the Delta 5. One, since it's the New Hampshire primary today, I could make a dumb joke about this being a Ron Paul-style campaign theme song. But Ron Paul has already beat me to it! (Here's another politically-themed version actually using the song.)

Or, I could say that if you've never had an irrepressible urge to dance around like an idiot, then you definitely have never heard this song. Here are a couple of girls bouncing around to it. Here are a couple more. And here's my favorite, a guy dancing around the corner of Prince Arthur and St. Dominique, which is kinda ground zero for tourist Montreal. In fact, that bar in the background is exactly where the bachelor party last summer initially gathered. Anyway, great tune, unstoppable bass line, you'll love it.



Photo: Sun goes down in Hudson Square.

Birthday wishes from the Rock-afire Explosion!

Rock-afire, Stu!

NEGRO CARBON

Listen to NEGRO CARBON by Manuel Donayre.

Afroperuano music is a relatively obscure strain of American music. It's special music, born of the unique culture developed by black slaves sandwiched between the Pacific and the Andes. It's called musica criolla, a term that additionally references the Andalucian and Roma influences on the music (such influences being even more apparent in dance).

While to my non-specialist ears it sounds much like, say, afro-cuban music, you can theoretically listen for local instruments like charangos and especially the cajons (basically wooden boxes used in percussion. Traditional percussion instruments like drums with skins or marimbas were once banned by colonial authorities. The cajon is the result of creative musicians' ad hoc responses to this ban).

The Rough Guide to Afro-Peru is a great contribution to an excellent series, and it is where we find Negro Carbon by Manuel Donayre. While Negro Carbon isn't rock n roll, it's sweet and smooth like a Soul Stirrers recording. You can see Mr. Donayre doing his thing on a choice few youtube clips.

Photo: Lincoln and Reagan.

Goodbye Oscar Peterson

R.I.P.

The gift that keeps giving!

We're signing off for a couple of days (probably). We'll put up some more Christmas songs on the featured playlist on the right (you can play them over your computer Christmas morning!), and leave you with a song we blogged earlier this year: The Gift That Keeps Giving by the Super Furry Animals. Here is the holiday-themed video for all of you (Be sure to watch til the end!). Happy Holidays!

THERE'S NO LIGHTS ON THE CHRISTMAS TREE, MOTHER THEY'RE BURNING BIG LOUIE TONIGHT

Listen to THERE'S NO LIGHTS ON THE CHRISTMAS TREE, MOTHER THEY'RE BURNING BIG LOUIE TONIGHT by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

I'm not really sure this is even a Christmas song, but I've always wanted to post a Sensational Alex Harvey Band track. I read somewhere that Bon Scott only listened to two singers, Elvis and Alex Harvey. And while I don't hear a huge amount of Elvis in early AC/DC (not saying it's not there), Bon Scott's voice (and his imitators like Brian Johnson, the Upper Crust, etc) can be a near carbon copy of Alex Harvey's. It's quite uncanny!

SAHB's songs are theatrical in a way that don't always translate to record, but their highs are pretty high and their lows are pretty interesting. There's No Lights isn't really either, but it's still worth your time this holiday season. What else are you going to listen to today? Below the fold is a live performance of the song, including a little snippet of a mulletted John Peel.


Photo: Will Rogers Theater.

Happy Holidays! Enjoy some music from us!

Season's greetings! This is our favorite time of year, not because we get presents (though that's nice too), but because we get to share our Holiday Mix with all of you! As many of you know, every year we've sent out these mixes to our friends, and every year it's become a bigger production. In fact, this here blog started solely to distribute the one from last year.

So that brings us to this year, and I have to say, it's probably the best one yet:

Everybody's Saying Music Is Love.

Every mix has a theme, and the theme of this one is Classic Pop Music from South America. It sounds obscure doesn't it? Well, trust me, if you love the Beatles, the Kinks, Pink Floyd, Santana, Jethro Tull, Badfinger, Simon & Garfunkel, Carole King (that is, all that classic pop and rock music from the late 60s and early 70s), then you'll definitely want to hear this.

Just as the British Invasion swept the U.S.A. and revolutionized music on this continent (as Corbett has been discussing this past week), so it did in South America. Particularly in places like Lima and Montevideo, local musicians picked up guitars and tried their best to sound like their British idols. (Groups from the latter city even formed their own "Uruguayan Invasion" of Argentina, with Los Shakers as The Beatles and Los Mockers as The Stones.) Over time, just as in America, bands married local and foreign musical idioms with ever more sophistication and style. For those willing to look, there's a universe of great music all of these acts have left behind.

Long-time readers will already be familiar with groups like We All Together and Almendra, but we've gone scouring the internet for music from all over South America. Everybody's Saying Music Is Love mixes twenty of our favorites.

Each day this week we'll be previewing five of our very favorites. The full mix, including all of the artwork, will be available for you to download beginning on Friday. And the week after, we'll be sharing some great traditional Christmas songs (traditional? well, you'll see), so you should stick around for that too!

Into the breach...

Corbett assures that he has a song today coming. In the meantime, enjoy this 1966 performance of Like a Rolling Stone by Dylan and the Hawks.

RIPPimpC

Damn, Pimp C is dead. 33 years old. Haven't blogged any UGK here but I had a couple tracks in mind next time I was posting hip hop. Wanted to play I Choose You at the wedding reception in tribute but got overruled. Loved those guys. Click on the link for some tributes & cool youtubes.

CAROLINA CAROL BELA

CAROLINA CAROL BELA by Toquinho and Jorge Ben.

Let's ease into Monday shall we? I haven't posted anything from Brazil in awhile, and I feel bad for that. Yes, it's in a different language, but (to overgeneralize wildly) Brazilian music is some of the sweetest, most accessible music in the world.

Carolina Carol Bela is sweet and accessible indeed. Toquinho isn't exactly an obscure figure, but nothing compared to Jorge Ben, whom even us poor Okies have heard of! I have copies of the song on three different albums/compilations, and it's well enough known to have a big D&B single built around it, and a Youtube video! So I'm not giving you anything totally rare (that will come later in the week), but something you can listen to and enjoy any time.

LISTEN.

Photo: How long it takes (1).

Barren Saturday

I'm down in the canyons of Wall Street this afternoon, putting my time in, and deciding when and where to go later on for the last day of CMJ. I was think of dropping by a couple of houses, and then seeing if I can get into Justice at the new Terminal 5. Amy and I (and Philip and Meredith (of Girl Robot fame) and John and lots of others) saw Ghostland Observatory at Webster Hall. I loved it. I have a write up ready (at least in my head!), but I can't post anything at the imeem site at the moment for reasons that are unclear to me. I did manage to put up some photos, and if the technical stuff sorts itself out, I'll have two nights of reports to file. I might just post them here, who knows. (You can at least see my photos here.)

In other news, Boring Liverpool were gifted a win at Everton, and Boring Bolton were gifted a loss at Arsenal. (Roll on next weekend, but I'll be watching on tape delay.) And Oklahoma is in the fourth quarter trying to beat the vaunted Iowa State Cyclones.

DALLAS

DALLAS by Poco.

Even though I hate the f*cking Eagles, man, they're permanently embedded in my DNA from years of exposure to classic rock radio, so I have to confess that one time I was stuck in an airport bar in Hawaii and played four of the songs from The Eagles Greatest Hits three times before my plane arrived. The only other album I knew in that jukebox was Was (Not Was) and that was not going to happen.

The Timothy B. Schmidt factor has pretty much scared me off of Poco, but when I heard that Steely Dan wrote a song for the group I had to check it out. You can totally hear the Dan's influence in Dallas melodically and structurally, but it's understandable why Becker and Fagen didn't keep it for themselves. Their poisonous relationships are strictly bi-coastal. I've been in Dallas and it ain't that nasty.

LISTEN.

Photo: Highway relic.

Here comes CMJ07

Every year CMJ takes over NYC for a week.

This year, it's taking the blog over too. Here's the deal: I've gotten a press badge to take in as many shows as I can over the five nights next week, and I'll be blogging it over at imeem's CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival Group. I'll probably cross-post everything here too, so that will make up for my laziness in writing about concerts lately.

I just spent a few minutes unsuccessfully googling this, but I think my first CMJ experience was seeing Elliott Smith in 1998. This year I can see just about any band in the world (for real, the roster is pretty daunting), so I've been spending hours trying to narrow down the options. If you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to send them along.

I'd like to say thanks to imeem for hooking me up. I'm on there as the fairly ominous-sounding "H. L. I. T." It's pretty fun though. And, my very first friend is Justice! [their webmaster, says Amy the spoilsport.] Which gives me an excuse to post this great youtube of D.A.N.C.E. Check it out, and check back tomorrow for Friday's tune.

ONE OF THESE THINGS FIRST

ONE OF THESE THINGS FIRST by Nick Drake.

Thanks to Volkswagen almost everyone has heard of Nick Drake, but it wasn't always this way. On balance that's a good thing but I'm not sure I ever got a bigger thrill of discovery from any single artist . That was thanks to Corbett. I remember I got my own copy of "Way To Blue" at a Blockbuster Music on 23rd Street while I was up visiting my Grandpa (the same one who built the Myriad) the fall of 1995. What is it with these songs? Are they placid? Unsettling? You can't get to the bottom of them.

Of the three albums, "Bryter Layter" always struck me as the weakest. That's the purist in me talking. Even so, Corner Bistro has long had a copy of "Way To Blue" in its jukebox, and over the years I've listened to every track there, and in my opinion one song sounds the very best there: One Of These Things First. Here it is for you.

***

While I have your attention: Congratulations to our two teams for their wins this weekend, congratulations to Paul and Medina for their new baby girl, Anessa, and safe travels to Amy and the girls!

LISTEN.

Photo: Corner sign (1).

Pop Lock and Drop It (Remix) (Bizarro Youtube)

From John, a peek into bizarro Chuck E. CheeseShowbiz Pizza world. Crazy.

--edited for correct happy fun place.

VINGSLAG

VINGSLAG (ft. Johan Tuvesson) by Kalle J.

This track today I'm a little obsessed with. The featured sample will be instantly recognizable to Bacharach/Walker Brothers fans out there (I know there are a few), and is the key to the song. The sample itself is more than a little piercing, sped up, house-y. Everyone knows how you can transform a sound by snipping it and looping into a sample, and there's a little of that going on here. The first time I heard this track, I was skeptical about the sample and the song itself during the first verse, but the sound wormed its way into my head by the end of the song and ends up delivering a decent emotional impact. Hard to describe (evidently!). But I like it. And it comes with a video too! Back to playing around with the ceiling.



LISTEN.

Photo: Ceiling cracks (3).

BE PART

BE PART by Kocky (feat. Jens Lekman & Rosanna).

You may recall (I'm sure you do!) that last December we posted a podcast that Stu did with Jens Lekman over in Iceland. You can watch it again here. During their little chat, Stu asked Jens how his new record was coming along, and Jens said it was almost finished. Fast forward to today and it is quite finished (but hasn't yet been released in the U.S.A.). Definitely pick it up on October 9, it's excellent.

Jens was also talking about about how much he enjoyed collaborating with other artists in the podcast, and today's track is the fruit of one such collaboration. What little I've read about Kocky is his debut album was a big deal this summer in Sweden, and on the evidence of "Be Part" (aka "Be Part Of It All"?), the hype is deserved. It's pop electronic dance music not a million miles from Justice or Daft Punk. It's so good it has a video! Check it out below the fold.



LISTEN.

Photo: Ceiling cracks (2).

"Let us be frank about it: most of our people have never had it so good"

I was going through the archives of the blog last night looking for something and noticed that I used to post a little bit more than just a song every Monday-Wednesday-Friday. I got away from it once I started wedding blogging, but I don't have an excuse now.

Sometimes I wrote a little bit about sports. During the first couple of months of this year, when Arsenal were playing really well, there were quite a few posts. Then Arsenal lost the Carling Cup final, Henry and Van Persie got hurt, the season petered out, so that stopped. But now, well, now we've never had it so good! Apart from winning a trophy, have we ever had such a good week? We crushed three teams, including Spurs, quite convincingly, and went top of the league for the first time since 2004. Cesc Fabregas has come of age much like Ronaldo did last year. We announced that we are now the "richest" club in England and have loads of money in the bank. Not to mention the oft-predicted and much-anticipated Chelsea implosion may have finally begun! Beauty!

Things change quickly, so the saying goes, and that's true, but who cares about tomorrow, let's enjoy it while it lasts, etc etc.

The other football team is ticking over nicely too, coping pretty well with a tricky Tulsa team and solidifying its place as the best of the "other" undefeated teams after USC and LSU. As a bonus, OSU's coach has made himself an international Youtube laughingstock by losing his cool over some stupid newspaper article. (Personally, I think "laughingstock" is a little generous. Yes, he looks completely ludicrous stalking the podium like he's Howard Beale. But it's no surprise, and a little creepy, that the target of his mad as hell grandstanding happens to be a childless woman. That'll show her, eh Mike?)

Anyway, another thing we were doing on the blog is noting births among our crew. As many of you know, Nick, a very-pregnant Kim, and Sabina were at the wedding last month, and now it's Nick, Kim, Sabina... and Ramona! Here's Ramona and her sister. Too cute!

I'm heading home for a little bit next week so I picked out the next series of tunes last night. I like them, but they aren't too hip. So enjoy this week's hipness while it lasts, don't worry about tomorrow, etc. etc.